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A gendered execessive force case of note as we reflect on gendered judging

By Douglas A. Berman

Perhaps because I am married to a female Princetonian, I am especially focused on how gender issues (as well as elitism issues) are starting to play out in this debate over the nomination of SG Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. (For some basic back-story, consider this New York Times piece from a few days ago, which is headlined "Reshaping Court?s Culture, a Woman at a Time.")  In other words, I am primed to be thinking about gendered judging: whether and just how women may view legal disputes differently from men. With this background, I found especially notable some of the gendered realities surrounding this split ruling by the Sixth Circuit today on an Eighth Amendment excessive force 1983 case.  For starters, there is a gendered dynamic to the underlying facts: the plaintiff is a woman, Trudy Griffin, arrested for disorderly conduct suing a male corrections officer, Darrell Hardrick, who sought to control her through a "leg-sweep maneuver" which led to a tumble during which a female corrections officer fell on the Griffin and broke her tibia...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 13, 2010 (boomark / email).